Early Planning

Christina, my teaching partner, and I met last week to discuss our collaborative project. We decided that we needed a working definition of collaboration. I introduced her to an outgrowth version of Loertcher’s Taxonomy of teacher/ SLMS as presented in Montiel-Overall’s article, Toward a Theory of Collaboration for Teachers and Librarians. I had given Christina a copy of the article earlier in the week. We were both on an equal basis as we began our discussion. We settled on the definition “collaboration as a process in which two or more individuals work together to integrate information in order to enhance student learning.” Collaboration is also based on trust, mutual respect and faith in one another’s teaching skills.

We decided to use Model C: Integrated Instruction, because our unit of study will be an integrated unit using Language Arts as the dominant subject combined with Social Studies focusing on cultural diversity and uniqueness. Because of my interest in travel and perceptions of individual uniqueness, I am struck on diversity and will enjoy sharing my passion with Christina who wants to explore a global world with unique characteristics and values. Christina is doing her Master’s program in Reading and Language Arts and is anxious to use her newly acquired skills to enlighten me. Each of us will be enriched by one another’s talents, and the students will learn to think globally as we work together to bring about a world of peace and understanding. We both believe that knowledge is the key to understanding. Our philosophies are visionary and challenging.

Assessments will be prepared as we use the “Backwards Design Process” that we learned earlier in this course. Then, we will prepare a rubric that covers Language Arts and Social Studies standards. We will place more emphasis on covering Language Arts areas.

We will work on Loertcher’s Taxonomy (Level 8) and see how the elements of collaboration, reading literacy, enhancing learning through technology and information literacy can be presented in our rubric assessment. That will need some co-thinking!

The only roadblocks we have faced so far are time and scheduling.

The blending of both our experiences and backgrounds is overwhelming. We have so much knowledge. We need to narrow our scope.

Our collaboration so far is phenomenal, because we consider ourselves “born teachers,” and we have a passion to go above and beyond the call of duty.

I am anxious to get this project in action within the classroom and library. I anticipate that productive teaching and learning will take place. Christina and I have so much to offer our students. After all, they are the ones we must reach, because they are our future readers and dreamers and leaders.